


Who Cares What the Good Book Says

by queuedepoisson



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, Boarding School, Catholic School, M/M, Oral Fixation, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1976949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queuedepoisson/pseuds/queuedepoisson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Bucky thought he probably spent way too much time looking at Steve.  But that wasn't that odd, was it?  When you've spent every day of the last two years joined at the hip?  When you've shared classes and meals and a bedroom?  It would be expected that two boys, as close as they were, would know each other's habits, mannerisms, unconscious tics."</p><p>Steve has a particular habit that drives Bucky to distraction.  So much so that one day he finally does something about it.</p><p>Setting: 1932 Brooklyn.  Steve and Bucky are 14 and in the 8th grade at Holy Trinity Catholic School for Boys, where they board as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Cares What the Good Book Says

**Author's Note:**

> This is something short and sweet I wrote as a bit of inspiration overflow a few months ago. I haven't gotten another installment of The Vintage Whore Collection finished yet and it's been almost a month, so I thought I would throw this up finally. Cute teenage makeouts basically.
> 
> It is not as heavily edited as the Collection (there's a reason each section takes a month) so please please let me know if you catch any errors.
> 
> Title from Red Hot Chili Peppers - Catholic Schoolgirls Rule as aptly suggested by Kelty

Bucky thought he probably spent way too much time looking at Steve.  But that wasn't that odd, was it?  When you've spent every day of the last two years joined at the hip?  When you've shared classes and meals and a bedroom?  It would be expected that two boys, as close as they were, would know each other's habits, mannerisms, unconscious tics.

But lately, some of it just bothered him so much.  Not the way it woke him up when Steve would pour a glass of water from the pitcher in the middle of the night.  Or the way Steve would get to class early in the morning to sharpen all of his pencils, the ones he used for taking notes as well as the ones he used for drawing.  Bucky had even accepted he was going to take a punch at least twice a week as part of the fights Steve would find himself in when someone catcalled a dame walking by or tried to steal a younger kid's nickel.  Honestly, nothing about Steve had really bothered him until some something changed after his 14th birthday.  He didn't say anything because it could have changed something, made their routine uncomfortable, and that's not what Bucky wanted.

Steve spent a lot of time with his sketches, favoring sitting in their room to running outside in the fresh air that he associated with asthma, pollen and heat exhaustion.  Bucky preferred being with Steve to anyone else, so he learned to like being inside well enough too.  He wasn't an artist like Steve though and it wasn't always easy to find something to do.  Reading was fine, but he could only come up with enough coin for a new comic book or star magazine once in awhile and that meant reading the same things over and over.  The only books the Holy Trinity School for Boys considered necessary were a Douay Bible and a Life Use Speller.  It was easy to get distracted.

The most distracting thing in the room was Steve and he barely noticed when Bucky would stare at him.  Or when he did, he just assumed Bucky was looking at the drawing in progress, and he would turn to show Bucky his work.  Bucky would smile and tell him what a great artist he was, even though he hadn't been looking at the sketch before.

If Bucky was totally honest with himself, he was staring at one thing in particular: Steve's mouth.  But it was completely understandable, if anyone saw what Steve did.  Deep in concentration, the pink of his tongue would appear in the corner of his mouth, just barely peeking out.  It drove Bucky crazy, like it was something that would happen in a cartoon, or what a Marx Brother would do.  Nobody did that sort of thing in real life.

And the worst part was it wasn't the only time Bucky would catch himself staring at Steve's lips.  They'd be sitting around the big radio downstairs, listening to the Yankees play the Cubs, and Steve would bite down on a slender knuckle in anticipation.  They'd be helping each other clean up after a fight, and Bucky would carefully wipe away a small bit of blood from the split lip that would hopefully heal over enough before one of the Sisters saw.  Afterwards, Steve would run his tongue over the cut, paranoid someone would notice during evening prayers, and Bucky would find himself sneaking a look.

Even in the middle of class, he'd be daydreaming about this one girl from St. Agnes he had kinda gone with, and instead of picturing her face, he'd be thinking about how Steve looked drinking the shake the three of them split, pale cheeks hollowed with his lips sealed on the straw.  Next time, Bucky had just gotten them each a Coke, but that wasn't any better.  The way Steve curled his mouth over the edge of the bottle and exposed his neck when he tilted it back made Bucky forget what he was saying more than once.

It was just inevitable that there were things that would eventually get on each other's nerves and rattle them.  It just so happened that, in this case, it was Steve's ability to make his mouth so damn distracting.

Bucky slammed his fist down on the top of his thigh in frustration and tried to go back to concentrating on the board.  Apparently, he had missed most of arithmetic without being called on, but now they were working on memorizing and interpreting a Psalm, and that didn't hold his attention much better.  It, the mouth thing, probably bothered him so much because he figured there was nothing to do about it.  He couldn't exactly go to Steve and tell him to stop doing it.  He could tease him until he stopped, but that would just screw other things up.

He tapped his pencil lightly against the paper on his desk, still completely blank even though there was only an hour's worth of schoolroom time left for the day.  An idea came to him when he looked down at the pencil.  Maybe he could at least get some satisfaction by giving Steve a taste of his own medicine.  He could be just as distracting if he wanted to be.

When Sister Margaret turned back to the chalkboard to erase the lines of scripture and continue on to their grammar lesson, Bucky stole a quick look back at Steve.  Classroom seating was arranged in alphabetical order so they couldn't be side-by-side like they did everywhere else.  Today, however, it would work to Bucky's advantage that Steve was behind him by two desks and one row over.  Bucky gave a quick wave and a smirk, turning back before the teacher could see.

Steve's look had been amused but perplexed.  Perfect.  Bucky leaned forward in his chair and wrote down the sentence to be diagrammed as it was written on the board.  When he was done, he stuck the end of the pencil between his teeth, lips parted.  When he brought the pencil back down to mark the divisions between the words, he licked his lips slowly, making them wet and glossy.  Now that he looked like he was paying attention for the first time today, Bucky actually got called on.  He worried his lip with his teeth while he tried to come up with an answer that could apply to almost anything, since he hadn't even heard the question.  When it satisfied the sister enough to put a good mark in her book next to his name, he smiled with his bottom lip still between his teeth.

Once she went back to the lesson, Bucky bit down on his thumb absent-mindedly, pressing his lips into a pout.  Mostly it was to keep from laughing.  It was killing him that his back was to Steve and he couldn't tell if any of this performance was working.  As soon as Sister Margaret turned again to mark the predicate, Bucky twisted around quickly to throw a saucy look at Steve, to sell the joke.  He had to bite down even harder to keep from laughing because when he winked at the end, Steve dropped his pencil and almost fell out of his desk reaching for it.

Bucky was turned back around before the Sister heard the clattering noise, but he couldn't stop the wide grin across his face at his success.  He shouldn't have worried about the look on his face as she snapped right to Steve, barely slid back into his seat.  "Is there a problem, Mr. Rogers?"

"No, ma'am."  Bucky didn't dare look back at this point but he felt bad and let up.  Mostly.  He continued to chew on the end of his pencil for the last fifteen minutes of class, but with real anxiety now, hoping Steve wasn't too ticked at his prank.

It seemed like ages until Sister Margaret finally released them, now that Bucky didn't have a distraction.  He wasn't doing it on purpose when he sucked on his bottom lip anxiously, reddening it, as she gave them reading assignments for the next day.  Finally, she gave the word and in a loud shuffle, Bucky, Steve, and the rest of the boys gathered their books and papers and lined up at the door.

The teacher stood at the front of the class, stern faced as ever, analyzing each student as they walked out.  Bucky kept his eyes on the floor as he passed under her withering gaze and waited in the hallway for Steve.  Most of the other boys were rushing outside to run around and blow off steam before it was time to return for chores and dinner, but Bucky always waited for Steve first.  When Steve went to pass through the doorframe, the nun stopped him from going through with a hand on his shoulder.  All she had to do was raise the ruler in her hand and Steve obediently held out his for the impending smack.  It made a sharp noise that made Bucky flinch.

"No disruptions again, understood?"  Steve nodded and glared straight ahead.  Bucky hadn't thought that this game would somehow get Steve in trouble.  Steve might get his a share of punishment for schoolyard fights, right alongside Bucky and any of the kids who might try to pick on Steve or the other smaller kids, but in class, Steve was practically perfect.  Still, that was the way things were done here.  Swift, preemptive discipline was the only way to deal with dozens of young men sharing a school and a home, at least as far as the administration was concerned.

Bucky leaned against the wall with a smile that he hoped would make Steve forgive him before they even started fighting.  He prayed it would work.

"Are you going to tell me what the heck that was about?" Steve demanded, the replacement curse in a sharp whisper.  Bucky doubled down on that infuriatingly charming smirk.

"Can't imagine what you're talking about?"  The smile dropped when Steve huffed off and headed up the stairs to the third floor where their beds were.  Bucky quickly fell in step behind him and tugged on his arm.

"Okay, okay, Steve, I'm sorry.  So I was pulling a little fun.  It was just… a joke, alright?  I didn't think it'd get you in trouble."

Steve turned sharply to face Bucky on the small landing of the stairs.  "But why'd you even do it? I mean," Steve hesitated, "that stuff with your mouth and the pencil and whatever?"

Bucky just shrugged so Steve turned and continued storming up the stairs, louder than necessary.  Once they were near the bedroom, Bucky pulled him inside, away from anyone that might be listening.  Bedroom wasn't exactly the right word for the long room that held twelve cots with twelve trunks at the end and twelve nightstands with twelve bibles atop them, but it was the closest to a private space they had.  At least they were the only ones up there at this hour.

"It's just a thing people do when they concentrate and I thought it was funny."  Steve rolled his eyes and started to walk away once more but Bucky grabbed his arm lightly.  "Like, it's distracting.  You do it all the time.  Sticking your tongue between your lips and whatever."  Steve pulled away and walked over to his cot, right next to Bucky's.  "You deserved to know how it feels."

Steve looked even more annoyed with Bucky.  "If it bothered you so much, you should have just said something."  He sat on the bed with another dramatic huff, throwing down his books in exchange for the sketchbook and pencil he had left on his nightstand.  Putting his feet up, he set to work ignoring Bucky.

Bucky sat on his own bed, looking at Steve, mouth screwed up in frustration.  "What was I s'posed to say, that I've been staring at your pretty mouth?"  He hoped he had used enough sarcasm to make the gag obvious.

"So instead you wanted me to stare at yours?" Steve deadpanned back, without even looking up from his sketchbook.

"So you're saying you think it's pretty?"  Bucky gave a wink and pressed his lips together, both to make the bit work and because he could smack himself for saying it in the first place.

It got enough of a rise out of Steve that he turned his head to shoot Bucky a dirty look.  "You are impossible.  I swear you think you can make anyone go for you."  He turned back to his sketchbook muttering.  "Like you're goddamn Clark Gable or something."

Bucky knew if Steve swore, even two floors away from the nearest member of the clergy, it was time to back off.  So he threw his legs up on to his own cot and grabbed the comic book he hid in between the pages of the bible on his nightstand.  Every time he turned the page, he'd look back up at Steve, waiting to see if he was still mad.  Steve's eyebrows were knit in a tight scowl as he sketched, so he gave up by the fourth page and tried to focus.  It was useless.  He wasn't able to pay attention to the words or the pictures.

This whole thing started because he couldn't concentrate around Steve.  Especially when they were sitting like this in their room.  It wasn't always from a laugh or a sports game.  Sometimes Bucky would wake up in the middle of the night and listen to the comforting sound of Steve's wheezing.  When he didn't hear it, he would kneel silently next to Steve's bed, watching his parted lips until he was sure he was okay.

They looked out for each other like that.  If they both got in trouble, Steve had learned to let Bucky take the majority of the blame, because anything else would make Bucky cross with him.  But he still bit down on his cheek, sucking it softly, to hold back from shouting the whole truth.  Bucky didn't think Steve knew that he saw it.  Steve might have wanted to keep Bucky from having to sweep all the floors, but Bucky didn't want the dust to make Steve's lungs any worse off than they already were.

He had managed to flip all the way to the back cover without ever having read a word.  When he looked over at Steve again, he broke out into a grin and let go of his darker memories, because there was Steve's tongue in the corner of his mouth, his eyes tightly focused on some specific detail.

"You're doing it on purpose now, aren't you?" Bucky accused, laughing at the same time.

Steve stared up at the ceiling, teeth clenched.  "Let it go," he warned.

Now it was Bucky's turn to heave a sigh and flip back to the first page of the book again.  Steve turned to a new blank sheet and started scratching out a new drawing much more carefully and quietly.  Bucky tucked his head down and read the comic for what felt like the twentieth time this week.  He stubbornly resolved that it was Steve's move if he wanted to break the silence; if they were fighting, it wasn't Bucky's fault, as far as he was concerned.  When the page stuck, he licked his finger to turn the page and didn't even bother making a joke about it.

Bucky jumped when he felt his bed move and looked up to see Steve sitting at the end of it, legs crossed and sketchpad still in hand.  Still willfully refusing to be the first to say something, Bucky merely cocked an eyebrow in question.

"Making an artistic study," Steve said matter-of-factly.

"You're studying me?"  Bucky was confused but put on his best self-satisfied smile.

"I'm studying lips.  You're the one who pointed it out."

Bucky sat up, knees to knees with Steve.  He filled his voice with exasperation.  "God, Steve, you take the fun out of everything.  It was just a joke."

"You're the one that started this."  Steve shook his head and fixated on the drawing, ignoring Bucky trying to get in his face.  "You want me to shut up about it, make me -"

It sounded like he was about to add "punk" to the end of that sentence but Bucky had grabbed him by the jaw and the word died on his open lips.  Bucky cringed.  It had been rougher than he meant and Steve flinched like he thought Bucky was going to clock him for the whole argument.  Bucky had a bad habit of not thinking things through until after they were done and so he looked at Steve with searching eyes, looking for the reason behind his actions.  Whereas Bucky's expressions always started at his mouth, the set line of his lips giving away his emotions, Steve's started with his eyes, a sparkle when he wished he could laugh out loud or a glassy squint when he was holding back his emotions.  Bucky looked there for an answer to what he had done, but Steve remained impassive, waiting for Bucky to decide what was going on, if it wasn't starting a fistfight.

With that do-first think-later logic, Bucky leaned forward and closed the space between them.  Barely inches from Steve's face, he looked down at Steve's mouth and back up into his blue eyes.  He wondered if Steve could see the bewilderment Bucky felt inside.  If only Steve would just jerk away from him and Bucky could get on with being embarrassed, write the whole thing off as a lark in poor taste.

Instead, Steve stayed stock-still looking back at Bucky.  His breathing was just a little louder than it had been before, or maybe that was just because he was so close to him.  Steve's tongue darted between his lips once more, moistening them with a quick pass, a nervous tick Bucky had watched thousands of times, but had never reacted to quite like this.

Bucky would never believe they sat like that for only seconds before he got the nerve to finish what he started.  He crossed those last few inches and crushed his mouth against Steve's, eyes tightly shut.  He didn't know what to do when Steve didn't jump back or push him away.  He hadn't planned that far in advance.  He just held them together, his hand still locking Steve in place.

Any kisses he had gotten from girls so far had just been quick stolen pecks, but he had seen enough in movies and from couples on the street.  He separated the two of them just long enough to take a deep breath, one that didn't calm him near enough, and kissed Steve again.  This time his eyes were still closed but relaxed and he was able to keep his mouth soft.  His hand slipped from holding Steve's jaw to resting on the curve of his neck.  Bucky was frantically searching for a sign from Steve that this was okay, that it wasn't strange or awful to keep going, when one of Steve's hand curled over his knee and around his thigh.

That small scrap of encouragement was all he needed to slide his tongue between his lips and across Steve's.  He felt a skip in his chest when Steve opened his mouth so willingly, yielding to the press of Bucky's intrusion.  It still didn't prepare him for when he felt Steve's tongue move the same way against his.  It was all done so timidly and tenderly, Bucky was surprised with how his heart was pounding.  He could feel the edge of Steve's teeth and the softness of his bottom lip moving against his own.  There was nothing expert about how they moved together, but it was a thrilling exploration to Bucky.  This was something he hadn't learned about Steve after two years.

Reluctantly, out of breath, Bucky broke the kiss but didn't back away, their foreheads resting together.  Both panted for air, faces red and warm, eyes diverted downward.  Bucky's fingers rubbed softly at the nape of Steve's neck and Steve's thumb brushed along his inner thigh.

It took that small touch for Bucky to realize just how much his blood was racing from the kiss and racing to one area in particular.  He swallowed hard, trying to think of something funny to say about the whole thing, to make it seem normal, to make Steve's hand move away before he was found out, but his mouth stayed dry.

"Steve, I -"  He hushed quickly when he heard rushing steps up the stairs.  It was already time to get changed for dinner, he realized, and that stampede was the rest of their fellow boarders heading to the bedrooms.  He looked up at Steve with panic across his face.

In a blur of skinny limbs, Steve was on his bed, sketchbook closed against his knees.  Other than the pink blush across his face, no one could have deducted that anything unusual occured before the other boys streamed into the room and to their trunks.  Bucky scooted back on the bed and grabbed the bible, placing it squarely over his lap.  It fell open to the Gospel of Matthew and he repeated the lines until he could safely stand up to get changed.

As his pulse slowed in his ears, he tried to focus on the list of names on the page, but his mind raced.  He didn't know why he did it when he was doing it and he was just as baffled now.  Baffled and upset it was interrupted, cut short before he could figure it out.  If he tried it again, would he then know why?  He shot a secret glance at Steve, who was already looking at him with an unreadable expression.  Maybe intrigued instead of puzzled like before?

When he tried it again, he decided.


End file.
